Official lottery offers state-regulated online lotto games that allow players to purchase tickets legitimately and securely. Pennsylvania’s collection of iLottery products includes Instant Win games with top prizes that start at $10,000 and go up to $100,000, including the popular Jungle Tumble jackpot game. Ticket prices vary from $0.05 to $20 and can be purchased at retailers across the state.
The lottery is one of the most popular forms of gambling in the world. The state-regulated version is a massive enterprise with tens of billions of dollars in annual sales and a huge infrastructure of ticket agents, statewide distribution points, and the internet. The premise is simple: the more you play, the better your chances of winning.
Lotteries are promoted as ways for states to raise money, and indeed they do. But that money is only a small fraction of overall state revenue. It’s also not nearly enough to do much good.
What’s more, the lottery preys on poor people, who are often tempted to spend money on tickets with jackpots that are impossible to reach. These ads convince them that they will soon gain wealth, when the truth is that they’re continuously paying into a system with a mathematically stacked deck. In an era of inequality and limited social mobility, that’s a recipe for poverty.